Archive for
October 8th, 2011

Barcelona says Toronto Raptors point guard Jose Calderon has followed the Gasol brothers and decided to train with the Spanish club during the NBA lockout.

Calderon is the latest Spanish international to practice with Barcelona after Los Angeles Lakers center Pau Gasol and his brother Marc of the Memphis Grizzlies linked up with the club earlier this week.

While the Gasol brothers are practicing with the first team, Calderon will train with the Barcelona B team from Sunday.

Days after qualifying for the Turkish Airlines Euroleague Regular Season, newcomer Galatasaray of Turkey announced on Friday the return of big man Zaza Pachulia to Europe’s top competition. Pachulia (2.10 meters, 27 years old) arrives from the Atlanta Hawks of the NBA, where last season he averaged 4.4 points and 4.2 rebounds in 79 appearances. Pachulia made his Euroleague debut during the 2001-02 season playing with Ulker Istanbul, where he stayed for two years.

The NBA and its locked-out players are unlikely to meet again before Monday, almost assuring the first two weeks of regular-season games will be canceled.

Who’s to blame for scuttling a proposed weekend meeting between the sides depends on who you ask.

Sources told ESPN The Magazine’s Chris Broussard that the union asked for the meeting, and the owners agreed — on the condition the players agree to a 50-50 split of basketball-related income. When the union rejected that stance, the owners said there was no need to meet, the sources said.

NBA spokesman Tim Frank confirmed to ESPN The Magazine’s Ric Bucher that the owners are sticking to the 50-50 revenue split. But he said it was the players, not the owners, who declined to meet.

“We told the union today that we were willing to meet as early as Sunday,” Frank said. “We also advised them that we were unwilling to move above the 50-50 split of revenues that was discussed between the parties on Tuesday but that we wanted to meet with them to discuss the many remaining open issues. The union declined.”

As a result, the first two weeks of the season will almost certainly be canceled.